Leo Strauss and the "Crazies in the Basement"
There is no question that we are engaged in a war of ideologies, or that democracy is under siege. But, contrary to prevalent misinformation and myth,
the significant threat is within, not outside the halls of our government.
From the beginning of his presidency, George W. Bush has surrounded himself with radical neo-conservatives, with what his father, the first President Bush, called “crazies in the basement.” They have advised him on everything from political strategy to foreign policy. What they have in common is the warped worldview of Leo Strauss: a charismatic and influential professor of political philosophy at the University of Chicago during the 1950s and 60s.
When he died in 1973, Strauss left what could be called a cult-following of obsessive acolytes, including former Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, “Prince of Darkness” Richard Perle, and Republican pundit William Kristol.
Strauss’ radical teaching pervades not only the Bush administration but many of the major conservative think-tanks as well---the Project for a New American Century (PNAC) and the American Enterprise Institute, in particular.
Becoming familiar with Strauss’ philosophy sheds light on our current political crisis and brings the challenge to focus. Above all, Strauss had contempt for the democratic process---he was an elitist who labeled the majority of human beings ‘the vulgar-many.’ His philosophy is an odd combination of the idealism of ancient Plato and the pragmatism of modern Machiavelli.
His ideal: the philosopher-king---The Decider, the authoritarian leader who knows what’s best for the befuddled majority.
His weapons: ‘the Noble Lie’ and perpetual war---empowered by a fearful and ignorant electorate, a deferential Congress, a lock-step Supreme Court, and a compliant media; in other words, the total breakdown of the constitutional system of checks and balances.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_donald_a_080423_leo_strauss_and_the_.htm
Now Strauss and Machiavelli live on through the democrats. The problem isn't with the democrats or the republicans per say. It's with their warped philosophy they adopted from Leo Strauss and Machiavelli , in a word, "elitism".
It's this "elitism" that is destroying this country from within. If we had no external enemies what so ever the "neocons" or those who follow Machiavelli's philosophy that "we the people" are to stupid to know what's best for ourselves and our country and there fore must be led around by the nose through deception and "noble lies" by our "princes" (read Machiavelli) would still destroy this country and everything it stood for. The only reason they keep telling us about all these "external threats" is to keep us in fearful and engaged in endless wars abroad and blind to the stone cold fact that
they themselves are the biggest threat this country has ever faced.
It's time to wake up and smell the reality. Our "leaders" are high functioning psychopaths that are taking us into ever more dangerous situations because, THEY"RE INSANE!
Alarmed at the anti-Russian hysteria sweeping Washington, and the specter of a new Cold War, U.S. intelligence veterans one of whom is none other than William Binney, the former senior NSA crypto-mathematician who back in March 2012 blew the whistle on the NSA's spying programs more than a year before Edward Snowden, took the unusual step of sending the following memo dated August 30 to German Chancellor Merkel challenging the reliability of Ukrainian and U.S. media claims about a Russian "invasion."
< snip >
MEMORANDUM FOR: Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany
FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)
SUBJECT: Ukraine and NATO
We the undersigned are longtime veterans of U.S. intelligence. We take the unusual step of writing this open letter to you to ensure that you have an opportunity to be briefed on our views prior to the NATO summit on September 4-5.
You need to know, for example, that accusations of a major Russian "invasion" of Ukraine appear not to be supported by reliable intelligence. Rather, the "intelligence" seems to be of the same dubious, politically "fixed" kind used 12 years ago to "justify" the U.S.-led attack on Iraq. We saw no credible evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq then; we see no credible evidence of a Russian invasion now. Twelve years ago, former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, mindful of the flimsiness of the evidence on Iraqi WMD, refused to join in the attack on Iraq. In our view, you should be appropriately suspicions of charges made by the US State Department and NATO officials alleging a Russian invasion of Ukraine.
President Barack Obama tried yesterday to cool the rhetoric of his own senior diplomats and the corporate media, when he publicly described recent activity in the Ukraine, as "a continuation of what’s been taking place for months now … it’s not really a shift."
Obama, however, has only tenuous control over the policymakers in his administration – who, sadly, lack much sense of history, know little of war, and substitute anti-Russian invective for a policy. One year ago, hawkish State Department officials and their friends in the media very nearly got Mr. Obama to launch a major attack on Syria based, once again, on "intelligence" that was dubious, at best.
Largely because of the growing prominence of, and apparent reliance on, intelligence we believe to be spurious, we think the possibility of hostilities escalating beyond the borders of Ukraine has increased significantly over the past several days. More important, we believe that this likelihood can be avoided, depending on the degree of judicious skepticism you and other European leaders bring to the NATO summit next week.
Read More At:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-09-01/ex-nsa-director-us-intelligence-veterans-write-open-letter-merkel-avoid-all-out-ukra
Looks like we're not the only ones that are questioning the lack of evidence to back up Washington and the media's allegations BIR.
